Borrowing Trouble
by fringeperson
Summary: Mal had to send Serenity on ahead and catch transport to Sihnon on another vessel. It just so happened that the ship he bought passage on was also carrying an old army friend. Nice as reunions are, nothing ever goes smooth. Don't own. Eventual RK.
1. Chapter 1

He had been embarrassingly separated from his ship. In order to avoid getting pinched on a job, he'd had to order his first mate, pilot, mechanic and gun-hand to all take off without him. He was none too pleased with that, but they'd promised to lay over on Sihnon until either he got there or waved them to come and get him. Being as it would be difficult for him to wave them to come and fetch him while it would be suspicious of his ship to be returning so soon, that meant he had to at least get to the next planet before he could make that wave.

"You lookin' for passage to anyplace particular?" asked a man as he wandered the docks, alternately looking at ships and their destinations.

"Sihnon for choice," he answered.

The man smiled. "That's where we're headed for our next port," he divulged.

"How fast you getting there, and how much is the fare?"

"We go by the back routes, with all the passengers in cryo for the longer trip. We're the cheapest ship in the docks 'cause of that."

"You the captain?"

"I am," the man agreed with a smile, and extended his hand to shake. "Tom Mitchell."

He nodded and shook the offered hand. "Mal. Nice t' meetcha," he said. "What do you do about Reavers?"

"We travel at a drifting speed," Tom Mitchell explained. "Like I said, long trip. Travelling at drifting speed, Reavers haven't ever bothered us."

"Can I get me a pod near the front?" Mal questioned.

"Got any personals?"

"Only what's on my person."

Tom Mitchell chuckled and nodded. "Then sure," he agreed. "Welcome aboard the Hunter Gratzner."

~oOo~

Mal came awake to the sound of emergency sirens an a man yelling – a man yelling something Mal most sincerely hoped did not mean what he thought it meant.

"Don't you touch that handle Fry!"

It was answered with a yelled "Owens!" that sounded utterly enraged, enraged in a way only a woman can be.

"Seventy seconds, Fry! You've still got seventy seconds to level this beast out!" that first voice yelled.

Mal decided that was his cue to get the hell out of the cryo pod. He wasn't the same deft touch that Wash was, but he'd learned a thing or two about flying since he'd taken on his own ship.

"How the hell does a person get out of these things?" Mal grumbled to himself as he inspected the inside of the pod.

And then there was a crashing like nothing he'd felt since the war had ended, and Mal got just a tiny bit more frantic about figuring out the release. The problem wasn't the great big switch that opened the door of the pod, the problem was the straps that held him 'comfortably' upright and the places the cryo drugs had been being pumped into him.

He figured it out while the ship was grinding to a halt, and as soon as he was free of his pod he moved to the one next to him. Had a kid in it that was pounding on the glass because the lever was too high to reach.

"So, I guess something went wrong?" the kid asked as Mal moved to the air-lock doors between their pods and the cockpit.

"Some days kid, I think my momma cursed me when she named me 'Mal'," he answered with as much humour as he could muster. "Things never go smooth," he complained.

The kid chuckled anyway, comforted that, even if their situation was potentially very bad, there was an adult that was cracking jokes and acting like even crashing was normal, rather than panicking.

"What's your name, Kid?" Mal asked as he found a half-buried body and worked to un-bury it, strapped as it was to the navigator's chair.

"Jack."

"An' that's short for...?" Mal prompted.

"Jack," the kid said firmly.

Mal chuckled. "Smart kid," he praised softly. Then... "Oh _ai ya jewh leh_," Mal said soberly as he revealed a man, still strapped to his chair, with a broken-off piece of metal through his chest.

"Mister Mal, there's another guy dead in this pod," Jack stated quietly.

Mal twisted and swallowed tightly. "That, kid, is the captain of this boat," he said, and anger began to supplement grief. "What kind of _l__iu kou shui de biao zi he hou zi de er zi_ doesn't even stay awake on his own ship?" he demanded a little tightly.

Jack raised an eyebrow at Mal. "I'm gonna guess that wasn't a nice thing to say."

Mal chuckled weakly. "You'd guess right," he confirmed, and then behind him the man with the stick of metal through his chest, the man still bleeding out, woke up with a scream.

Mal whipped his gun off his hip fast as Jack could blink, and put a bullet between the man's eyes.

"What did you do that for?" Jack demanded.

Mal knelt down a bit so he was on a level with the kid. "That was a piece of mercy," he told the kid firmly. "Man was dying, dead already really, but his brain hadn't caught up with it yet. Quick death was the only kindness I could give him. Understand?"

Slowly, Jack nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I get it."

"Thank you," a small voice said from behind Mal.

Man and child turned to see who'd spoken. It was a young woman, blonde hair, blue eyes, frail looking thing wearing the same uniform as the man Mal had just shot.

"Didn't do it for you," Mal informed the woman plainly. "Did it for him."

The woman nodded tightly, and crumpled to the floor beside the dead man. "Owens... I... I'm sorry," she whispered to the dead man.

Mal tapped Jack on the shoulder and gestured that they should leave the woman to grieve for a moment.

Jack nodded, and followed him out.

~oOo~

"So, what part of the 'verse are you from?" Jack asked. "I never heard anybody talk like you before."

Mal chuckled. "I'm from all over," Mal answered easily. "Travel is part of my business these days."

"So, what? You're always riding on ships like this one?" Jack queried.

Mal shook his head. "Got my own," he explained. "Had to stay behind for a bit while it went on to Sihnon though, so I had to get passage on a different ship." Mal sighed as he looked out at the wreckage left by the landing. "Looks like I picked the wrong ship."

"I guess that kinda puts a dampener on any ideas of scouting for other survivors," a new voice said, coming up along side. A woman.

"I'd say it does at that," Mal agreed with a glance at the woman.

"Is anybody else having any difficulty breathing?" a man's voice, cultured and probably used to dealing with Core folk, asked.

"Like I'm one lung short," agreed the woman.

"Like I just ran or something," Jack reaffirmed, and tried to breathe a little deeper.

Mal hopped out of the wreckage and looked up and around, scanning the full horizon as he turned three-hundred and sixty degrees.

"Huh," he said, stunned, impressed, and deeply unimpressed all at once.

"What?" Jack asked.

"Three suns," he answered the kid. "That's probably why the atmosphere is so thin."

"_Three suns_?!" Jack repeated, eyebrows shooting up.

"I don't believe I stuttered," Mal confirmed. "Well, let's get to work."

"Work?" Jake questioned.

"What are you talking about?" came the soft demand from the man with the Core accent.

"We have had the misfortune to land in a desert," Mal stated plainly. "If we want to survive until a rescue comes, or somehow facilitate our own rescue, we've got things to be doing."

"Man's not wrong," agreed a darker-skinned man.

"And even with three suns," Mal continued, "there's gonna be night at _some_ point, and I'll wager that it'll get cold, so let's try and save anything we can burn too."

"This will teach me to fly coach," muttered the Core man with a resigned sigh.

"Who died an' made you captain?" asked a blonde, blue-eyed man wearing a blue uniform an a tin badge.

Mal raised an eyebrow at the man who was either a purple-belly or a merc pretending to be one. Either option he didn't much care for. "Well, the captain of _this_ ship is dead. In fact, only member of the crew still alive is the pilot. I was on my way back to my own ship, of which I _am_ captain."

"Got much experience surviving these sorts of conditions?" the woman asked with a sweeping gesture.

"A few years worth," Mal allowed, and once more allowed his memories of Serenity Valley to return to the forefront of his mind, rather than lingering constantly around the edges like they did most days.

"Then that's good enough for me," the woman decided. "I'm Shazza," she said, starting of the introductions, "and this here is my man Zeke," she added with a gesture to the darker-skinned man beside her.

"Paris P. Ogilvie," the Core man said. "Antiques dealer, entrepreneur."

"I am Abu al-Walid, an Imam. These three are Suliman, Hassan and Ali," declared a man with even darker skin than Zeke as he and three boys (two teens and one who probably wouldn't reach double-digits for a few years... if he survived this, that is) emerged from the wreck.

"Johns," supplied the blonde, blue-eyed man.

"That a first name or a last name?" Jack asked.

"William J. Johns," expounded the man.

"I'm Mal, Captain Reynolds of my own boat that is elsewhere, and this is Jack," Mal supplied. "I suggest we get to salvaging."

"Right," Shazza agreed.

"What about burying those that have died?" the Imam asked solemnly.

Mal shook his head. "If you've got the energy to see to the dead, then you've got energy to help keep the rest of us alive," he said firmly. "Not meanin' to disrespect 'em none, but the livin' take priority over the dead."

"Thank you for letting me grieve though," a new voice joined in. The pilot had finally joined them.

"_Mei wen ti_," Mal answered with a nod.

"What happened?" Zeke demanded to know.

"Might have been a meteor shower, maybe a rogue comet," the woman speculated. "I don't know," she admitted.

"Well I for one am thoroughly grateful," Shazza declared. "This beast wasn't meant to land like this, but I think you did a good job."

"_Owens_ did a good job," Mal corrected.

"Huh?" Jack asked, confused.

"He's right," the woman admitted. "Owens was the one that saved you all, not me. I'm just a docking pilot. I did my best, and we're all alive, but it's thanks to Owens. Not me."

"I woke up and heard some of what they were yelling at each other before we crashed," Mal explained to the others, without actually going into detail. "Alright, let's get to work. We're gonna need every pair of hands we can get to make sure we survive out here."

"Not quite every pair of hands," Johns corrected.

"What?" Mal asked.

"Got me a prisoner," Johns explained vaguely.

"Where?" Mal asked. "Still in cryo?"

Johns shook his head. "He slipped that, but he's tied up again. Secure and out of the way, and he's gonna stay that way."

"That certainly sounds reasonable," Paris agreed quickly.


	2. Chapter 2

"How about you go with the Islams to find water?" Mal suggested to Johns when they were in the only storage container that had landed near them.

Paris had some alcohol they could drink among his possessions, though of course he was going to charge them for it.

"Why should I?"

"One, this all won't last forever. Two, it will actually dehydrate us and see us dying off faster. Three, booze is something the Islams can't have. If they run into anything not-nice out there while _looking_ for water, your big gauge will, I'm sure, be a mite helpful," Mal explained.

Johns nodded in understanding, though he still didn't look totally thrilled with the prospect.

Mal then turned and looked over at the pilot then, who had eventually gotten around to introducing herself as Carolyn Fry and was currently collecting bottles.

"You'll probably have the company of our pilot, since I think she wants to get away from where her captain and fellow crew-mate died," Mal added thoughtfully, half an eye still on the man beside him.

Johns smirked in pleasure at the very idea.

Mal carefully didn't frown. Yeah, he didn't trust the man as far as he could throw him, but it was needful right now that they work together, so he was having to swallow a lot of his pride if he wanted to survive this little side-trip to the corner of No and Where.

"What will you do?" Johns asked. "While we're out lookin' for water?"

"Figure out how much jerry-rigging needs and can be done so that we'll have what we need to survive the desert for a prolonged period of time. I'd be downright surprised if there's anything else in here that we can live off, nutrition-wise, but we need more'n food an' water to live," Mal answered.

Johns nodded in assent, and as soon as some oxygen filters were rigged up by Zeke and Shazza, the Islams, Johns, and Fry all headed off in the direction of the blue sun, in search of water.

Mal headed into the wreck, looking for Johns' captive.

Criminals, Mal knew, were often very versatile in their skills. On the other hand, some would just as likely kill all of them for no reason. Mal was going to find out which kind Johns was so set on keeping locked up.

~oOo~

"_Shun sheng duh gao wahn_!" Mal exclaimed when he saw just who was tied up, gagged and blindfolded.

The bald head of the man jerked up in surprise at the sound of his voice.

Mal hurried to remove the bit-gag.

"Doc, what the gorram hell you doin' here?" Mal asked manically, even as he moved to do something about the chains holding the man.

"Johns was shooting civilians," the man answered in a low rumble. "Of the 'women and children' sort."

Mal sighed. "Alright," he allowed, and forced himself to calm down as he worked. "Well, we got us a situation here you're not gonna like."

"Already know Johns survived the crash," the other man rumbled.

"Yeah, well I'm sure you also already know the atmosphere on this rock is somewhat thin," Mal remarked, and with a smirk of triumph moved on from the handcuffs he'd just removed to the cuffs around the other man's ankles. "This is owing to the fact of there bein' three suns in the sky."

"_Three_ fuckin' suns?!" the other man growled.

"I'll find you some welders goggles," Mal promised. "Okay, you're loose."

"Thanks Sarge. I'da dislocated both my shoulders getting loose otherwise," the man said with a grateful smile, though he kept the blindfold on.

Mal winced at the very idea, though he knew the other man had been through worse pain than that. "I'm not a sergeant any more," he said, rather than making comment.

"Not a field surgeon any more either," the other man countered with a smile. "Just Richard B. Riddick now, convict and murderer."

"_Guai_ you are," Mal said with a scoff. "Who'd you kill?"

"Baby-raping bastard," Riddick answered plainly. "Only thing was, he was the magistrate over the area where I'd found me work after the war, and he had connections on top of that. Dealing justice wasn't too terribly popular with anybody but the people who could only keep their mouths shut."

Mal sighed. "Yeah, okay, I can see that," he allowed. "Always was too damn soft," he added with a cheeky grin.

Riddick rumbled out a chuckle of his own. "Killed a lot of people in the name of survivin', not killed many in the name of they just needed to be dead. I gotta get outta here, even if there are three _q__ing wa cao de liu mang_ suns. Get a feel for the place."

Mal nodded. "I'll find you those goggles," he promised, and returned with the items required within the minute. "Now scram," he ordered with a smile, "an' act like we ain't crossed paths until we have an audience to witness it."

Riddick nodded. "Safer for both of us that way," he agreed as he pulled on the goggles. "Thanks Sarge."

"Best of luck, Doc," Mal answered solemnly with a nod.

Riddick smirked. "You know I'll kill Johns if I can," he stated plainly.

Mal shrugged. "He's trying to what? Collect your bounty or mete out incorrect justice?"

"Former," Riddick said plainly.

"Then you've got my blessing to do the merc."

Riddick smirked dangerously, and then vanished.

Mal sighed when he was alone. "I hate when he does that," he grumbled to himself. He was smiling though.

~oOo~

There was an art to scavenging and salvaging from wrecks, and Mal was happy to teach this art to his little tag-along while the Islams, Johns and Fry were out looking for water and the apparently psychopathic murderer that had escaped his restraints while they hadn't been looking.

Johns' description of Riddick wasn't a pleasant one, and for all that Mal knew it to be a massive falsehood, he was not about to give away yet that he knew Riddick. For all he knew, there could be a lot of different people called Riddick, and the description Johns gave and the man Mal knew were so different that no one would question his doubts that they were the same man when they got around to that.

As part of the ruse, and because he didn't for one second believe that anybody shouldn't be able to at least defend themselves, Mal did his best to teach what he could to Jack insofar as fighting skills. They couldn't exactly be wasting bullets though, so rather than teaching the kid how to shoot, Mal imparted all he knew of how to come out not-on-the-bottom of a bar brawl. Such techniques were generally fairly useful and straight-forward, and with the weapons provided by Paris, these lessons could be augmented slightly.

Then, on the other side of the ship, there was a sound of gunshots and screaming.

They made it around in time to see Johns push some darkly-clothed body ahead of him back into the wreck.

"Huh," Mal grunted. "I'm guessin' the screamin' was on account of him?"

"Zeke's dead," Shazza answered dully from within the hold of Fry's arms. "He... he was makin' shallow graves for the crew... an' another survivor I killed thinkin' he was..." Shazza trailed off and shook her head. "Then suddenly I hear 'im yellin', and when I get there, he's gone and..." she squeezed her eyes shut, not able to recount any more than that.

"Condolences," Mal offered weakly, then turned his gaze to Fry. "Find anything?"

"Water, and an emergency skiff. It will need to be fixed, but it will be able to get us off this rock," the blonde answered. "But we do need to figure out what to do with him."

"I wanna know what he did with Zeke," Shazza said firmly. "Zeke's _gone_. Not just dead... He coulda stuffed Zeke in that hole, but... It don't look like he's there..."

"We'll start with talkin' to the guy then," Mal said firmly. "Miss Fry, what little I know of convicts is that they tend to respond better to women-folk. I'd like you to question him, if you please. I'll keep an ear on the whole thing from just outta sight, if'n it'll make you feel better."

Fry nodded. "Okay," she agreed.

"Can I come too?" Jack asked eagerly.

"No!" Fry answered sharply.

"Sure," Mal agreed at the same time with an easy shrug. "Man's gonna be tied up. Shouldn't be able to do much," he added, by way of explanation to Fry for his permitting the kid's attendance. "I want you to remember though that this man isn't some freak-show exhibit or an animal in a zoo."

Jack nodded quickly, eager to be allowed near the dangerous man.

~oOo~

"So where's the body?" Fry started off, getting straight to the point. Barely waiting long enough to get the idea that she wasn't getting an answer to that question, she ploughed on. "Well, do you want to tell me about the sounds?" she suggested. "You told Johns you heard something." Again, she didn't even properly wait.

Mal bit back a sigh of frustration. The woman was clearly not an interrogator or any sort. Of course, he didn't really care what she got told, but she needed to take _something_ back to the others.

"Fine. You don't want to tell me anything, that's your choice. But just so you know," she said, half turning away to march off, half hesitating, "there's a debate right now as to whether we should just leave you here to die."

"You mean the whispers," Riddick said lowly.

Jack started to inch passed Mal, wanting to get a better look at the man.

Fry also moved closer to Riddick, but she didn't inch. She walked up to him. A little slowly, a little hesitantly, clearly afraid of the big man that was all tied up, but still openly and with strides of her usual size.

"What whispers?" she asked, her own voice barely more than a whisper itself.

"The ones telling me to go for the sweet spot just to the left of the spine," Riddick answered at once, his voice a dangerous rumble. "Forth lumbar down. The abdominal aorta."

Still, Jack inched forward.

Fry halted, arms wrapped around herself as she stayed well back.

"It's a metallic taste," Riddick offered neutrally. "Human blood," he clarified. "Copper-ish. If you cut it with peppermint schnapps that goes away."

"You want to try shocking me with the truth now?" Fry suggested, cutting in when she wasn't able to listen to Riddick's litany any more.

"All you people are so scared of me," Riddick said after a moment. "Most days I take that as a compliment. But it ain't me you gotta worry about now."

"Show me your eyes, Riddick," Fry requested.

Mal raised an eyebrow. What did she need to see his eyes for?

"You'd have to come a lot closer for that," Riddick answered.  
Mal's other eyebrow joined the first. It sounded like his old friend really wanted to scare the docking pilot. Play with her mind. He found himself fighting back a chuckle as he realised he'd actually missed the man's sense of humour, twisted as it so often was.

"Mmm," Riddick just about purred as Fry slowly stepped forward a little. "Closer," he insisted.

Mal could _hear_ the sadistic humour in that low rumble, and the slight echo and scrape as Fry slowly took those steps – echoed by Jack, as the kid also got into a position to be able to see Riddick's eyes.

And then the loud noise of Riddick pouncing as far forward as his restraints would allow, while Fry gasped and jumped back a little.

"Where the hell can I get eyes like that?" Jack asked.

"Got to kill a few people," Riddick stated.

"Okay, I can do it!" Jack insisted.

"Then you get sent to a slam where they tell you you'll never see daylight again," Riddick continued. "You dig up a doctor, and you pay him twenty menthol cools to do a surgical shine-job on your eyeballs."

"So you can see who's sneakin' up on you in the dark?" Jack asked with an eager grin.

"Exactly," Riddick praised.

"Leave!" Fry ordered, radiating nerves.

Riddick's little story had impressed the teenager, but it had terrified the woman.

"Leave," Fry repeated, more gently.

Jack pouted, but went back into the hiding place Mal was using.

"Cute kid," Riddick said plainly. "Did I kill a few people?" Riddick asked, and there was a gentle thump of him sitting back down. "Sure. Did I kill Zeke? No. You got the wrong killer."

"He's _not_ in the hole. We looked."

"Look deeper," Riddick advised.

Mal smirked to himself at that. Oh yes, go poking around in a hole where someone had already disappeared. That was a _great_ idea. Especially if it would get rid of the docking pilot without any undue fuss. He wasn't a killer himself. Really quite valued life. On the other hand, he held with the fairness of if someone tried to kill him, then he was going to try and kill them right back.

And that woman had tried, for the sake of saving her own skinny ass, to kill _all_ of them.

So he wasn't feeling all that too charitable towards her or her continued ability to breathe.

"Show's over," Mal told Jack quietly. "Go on out of here, and don't you go heading for slams just to get a shine-job. Hunt down a hospital to get it done in."

Jack grumbled a little, but did as told, and Fry wasn't far behind in leaving.

"You like the kid?" Mal asked Riddick, not moving from his hiding place. "Really?"

"Really," Riddick answered simply. "Like I said: cute kid."

Mal nodded to himself. "Yeah," he agreed softly, and pushed off the wall.


	3. Chapter 3

Skinny little Carolyn Fry was the one to tie a rope around her middle and, with trepidation, take Riddick's advice of looking deeper.

The rest of them waited in semi-tense silence around the opening she'd crawled through. Imam held the other end of the rope, Shazza paced, but the rest of them really just stood there, waiting for her to come back or for the rope to go totally slack. Stupid woman hadn't even taken a weapon in with her. Just a torch.

Imam hopped down into the ditch and cocked his head towards the hole, drawing attention from everybody else.

"Thought I heard something," he said.

"I conjure I can hear somethin' myself," Mal agreed. "Faint though, an' I'm not sure it's just comin' from that hole."

There was a dull but insistent thumping coming from the wreck. Riddick rattling his chains, working everybody's nerves even when he couldn't be there in person.

"It's coming from in here," Jack called, the kid's ear pressed to one of the spires.

Johns pulled his baton off his belt and started to smash into the spire.

Fry was quickly recovered, and set on her feet, on the ground, about a foot from the spire and the hole they (Johns and Mal) just pulled her out of.

"Fry? Are you okay?" Jack asked.

"Did you find Zeke?" Shazza begged.

"Fuck!" Fry yelled as she bent in half, catching her breath. "I'm so fucking stupid! Whatever's down there got Zeke, and it nearly got _me_ -!" the last word a terrified scream as she was suddenly pulled back through the hole by the rope that was still tied around her waist.

Johns moved fairly fast to grab her, but she was already gone – and he was lucky he wasn't dragged down with her as she slipped through his grasp.

"Well, there goes the pilot that was our only hope of getting us off this rock," Paris noted once the moment of stunned silence had deepened so far as to be uncomfortable. "And now we also know that there are monsters under our feet."

"What condition was the skiff in?" Mal asked.

"You can pilot?" Johns asked.

"Been known to in my time," Mal agreed. "Not the best at it, but I can get by when its needful."

"So we can still get off this rock," Shazza said with relief, burying her grief for now in the face of more immediate dangers.

"That depends on the condition of the skiff," Mal reminded her, and turned to Johns and Imam.

"It needs work," Johns admitted, "but we should be able to repair it. It's converting the fuel cells that will be the tricky part."

"I can do that," Shazza said, sure of herself.

"Then we get everything we're going to need to fix it up and we go," Mal said firmly.

"The fuel cells are heavy though," Paris pointed out. "I don't know about you, but I'm quite sure I wouldn't be able to carry one for any length of time."

For a while, they were all silent.

Then Johns spoke up again.

"I'll talk Riddick into doing some heavy lifting," he decided. "He's worked with a horse-bit in his mouth before, this won't be too different to that," he added, and walked off back to the wrecked ship before anybody could say anything against the plan.

"Well, we've got scavenging to do people," Mal said in his best captain-y voice. "Let's get to work."

~oOo~

"_Wo bu shin wo dah yan jing_," Mal exclaimed when he saw Riddick walk out of the wreck, goggles on his face, calm as you please.

"What?" Shazza asked, and looked between Mal and the man she'd originally suspected of killing her husband.

Riddick also halted and stared right back at Mal. He barked out a laugh then, and strode up to Mal with a grin on his face and a hand already extended. "_How joh bu jian_ Sarge," he greeted happily, and slapped his hand into Mal's.

"You two know each other?" Johns asked dangerously.

"You never said _Richard B. Riddick_," Mal said, laughing happily himself. "Why, this man saved my life in the Unification War!"

"He _what_?!" Johns just about yelped.

"Piece of shrapnel tore up a nerve cluster in my back, and this fine man was the field surgeon that fixed me up," Mal explained. "Made it so I can still move."

"Moved the nerve cluster to somewhere else," Riddick recalled with a smile. "Sarge paid me back though, and then some. Everybody was dyin', but when there weren't any officers left breathing, he kept one-thousand of us going. Infection and starvation killed about six-hundred, but the four-hundred that lived to the end of the war, we all give the Sarge here credit for keepin' us alive."

"Come on Doc, you did your fare share of that too," Mal reminded.

Riddick snorted in amusement. "Oh yeah, killing the enemy with one hand and stitchin' up friendlies with the other, and now I'm a wanted man for it."

"Well, you were never a _w__u ming shao jwu_, but being a wanted man just for being that good?" Mal questioned.

Riddick shrugged. "Might also have something to do with having killed a magistrate who was raping babies," he allowed neutrally.  
"For some reason, that does seem to upset the people in power," Mal agreed, and finally released his friend's hand. "Well, come on. Let's get as much of this stuff to the settlement as we can. There's water to be had and a skiff to get the _guai_ out of here."

"So can I talk to him now?" Jack asked hopefully.

Mal and Riddick both chuckled. They were the only ones who spoke English that weren't currently in shock. The Islam boys, speaking only Arabic, were simply confused.

"Sure you can Jack," Mal agreed with a smile. "You ask nice, the Doc may even teach you a thing or two about fighting."

"Really?" Jack asked hopefully.

"Sure," Riddick agreed. "But you know kid, goin' to slam just for a shine-job's a bad idea."

"Mal said already," Jack acknowledged with a nod. "See if I can find a hospital that will do it. I'll have to save up a lot of coin for it though."

Riddick nodded. "Lot more expensive than twenty menthol cools, but also a whole lot less likely to die on the table. I know the method because I've seen other con's get it done. Me? I was born with mine."

"I don't believe this," Johns muttered to himself as the rest of the group got on with the business of salvaging what was needful, including three power cells.

Mal had one, Imam and one of his boys shared the task of carrying the second, while Riddick dragged the third along with the sled of various bits and pieces that would be needed when they got where they were going.

Johns carried his big gun and a chip on his shoulder, and that was it.

~oOo~

It was like living in a strange clash between a twisted horror movie and a family sit-com. One of the little Arab kids got eaten when he went exploring in dark places, and Jack was the one to figure out that there was an eclipse coming – and sooner rather than later, in all likelihood.

"Things never run smooth, right Sarge?" Riddick quipped.

Mal moaned in discontent. "Just please tell me we don't need to go back to the crash-site for anything?" he begged.

Riddick shook his head. "Can't do that," he said. "Gonna need another two cells just to launch."

"_Ri shao gou shi bing_!" Mal hissed in complaint.

"Not like we could have fit everybody into this tiny little skiff anyway," Riddick pointed out, his voice soft. "And then there's the issue of how we'd hold up for life-support."

"_Ai ya jwai leh_," Mal grumbled in a resigned moan. "You, me, Jack. Can it hold that many?"

Riddick nodded silently. Since the Arabic kid had been eaten, Jack was the youngest, and a cute kid besides. They may have been violent old bastards, but they had a soft spot for kids.

Of course, this conversation wouldn't be repeated to anybody else. Repeating it would be dangerous to their health.

Mal sighed. "I'll go ask Shazza to fix up that sand-cat. It's solar, but it will get us back to the crash-site that much faster while there is still light," he said, and let himself out of the skiff. "If we're lucky -"

"And you never are," Riddick quipped with a smirk.

"_How W'rin Bu Lai, Whai W'rin Bu Jwo_," Mal complained right back. "Again, _if_ we're lucky, we'll even be able to use the sand-cat for the return trip. Or at least some of it."

"We'll be lucky enough if we just make it back to the crash-site without the eclipse starting," Riddick said firmly.

"No borrowing trouble," Mal instructed unhappily, wagging a pointed finger at the one-time field-surgeon, before he let himself out of the ship.

Riddick laughed behind him.

~oOo~

The Islams had elected to stay at the ghost-town, collecting more water and loading bottles into the skiff while the rest of them went to fetch the last couple of cells (and in Paris' case, a few other things as well). The skiff was closed up and powered down completely, saving the capability of the cells for the take off. If they didn't find something to burn, then they wouldn't have any lights if the eclipse came before the rest of the group made it back.

In fact, the eclipse came just as the cells were loaded onto the sand-cat, and even though they didn't have the time to really waste, none of them could help but stand and stare for a moment when the eclipse began, and the monsters that had already eaten Zeke, Fry, and Ali came swarmed out in the half-light.

"People! Just a suggestion! But perhaps you should _flee_?!" Paris yelled at them all from the door of the container.

It was a good suggestion, and one they all took under advisement. Unfortunately, Shazza got caught by the swarm of flying predators. They cut her in half at the waist and carried her off in two pieces, eating her as they flew.

"I'm not sure if that's worse than Reavers or only just as bad," Mal commented with a wince as he, along with the rest of them, watched the woman go, still screaming even though her legs were separate from her torso. "Everybody inside," he instructed, as calmly as he could. "We want to shut the door so we'll be safe, even if just for a little while."

"Jack?" Riddick said softly as he lay a hand over the kid's shoulder and moved the pair of them into the container.

"She'd be fine if she'd have just stayed down," Jack whimpered softly.

Riddick nodded. He'd been caught out there with Shazza, and they'd both dived for cover. The woman hadn't gone for crawling on her belly as a method of reaching the container though. She'd tried to get up on her feet to run. That had been a fatal mistake.

The last few rays of the suns were blocked out just as Johns pulled the door of the container shut.


	4. Chapter 4

"Why do they do that?" Jack asked in a nervous whisper, one ear pressed up against the side of the container. "Make that sound?"

"To scare all a us," Mal said plainly. "An' because things that live in the dark do one of two things: they get special eyes, or they get special ears. Good portion of 'em tend to get both."

"You know what sonar is, Kid?" Riddick asked.

"Yeah," Jack answered.

"Think of it as their own personal sonar then," Riddick advised.

And then there was a noise from further down – but still _inside_ – the container.

"What's that?" Paris asked nervously.

"Could be a breach in the hull," Mal allowed. "Don't rightly know."

"Come on Johns," Riddick called. "You got the big gauge."

"I'd rather piss glass," Johns answered succinctly.

"Then pass it over and _I'll_ go look," Mal offered, and held out a hand for the merc's large gun.

"You got your own gun," Johns answered.

"An' it's for shootin' people with," Mal replied firmly. "I don't know where on these things I'd need to shoot to kill 'em. A bigger gauge will negate that issue."

Johns scowled, but passed the weapon over.

Behind them, Paris headed for the door he had, moments ago, been insistent on having closed.

"I'm not staying in here one more second," he declared softly. He'd wrenched the door open and was gone before anyone knew they needed to stop him, and Johns barely got the door shut again in time to save his own neck.

Only, he hadn't really. He was now shut up in a container with a pair of men who had been friends in the Unification War and a twelve-year-old. One of the men had his gun, and the other he had intended to double-cross and take back to the slam once they were off this rock.

First though, there was the monster that was in the container with them to find and kill. Hopefully, they'd be able to figure out some sort of weakness for them as well once they had a dead one to look at.

"Bring the torch Johns," Mal ordered as the monster thumped down at his feet. "It's dead now, and I want a look at this thing."

The torch proceeded to set the things skin to bubbling.

"The light actually hurts them..." Jack breathed.

"Guess that's why they didn't come out before the eclipse started," Mal reasoned. "So, what do we have for light?"

"Should be some stuff we can rip out of the ship," Riddick offered. "And if Paris had anything over forty-proof, that'll burn well."

"Let's find that booze, and hope there's enough," Mal recommended.

"Enough for what?" Johns demanded.

"To get back to the skiff," Mal answered, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"_Juh guh jee hua juhn kuh pah_!" Johns abruptly snapped out, eyes wide.

Mal smirked. "You can stay here if you like," he offered. "Jack?"

"If you an' Riddick are going, then I'm sticking with you," Jack stated with firm desperation.

"Don't worry Kid," Riddick advised as he lay a big hand on Jack's slim shoulder. "We'll take care of you."

~oOo~

Johns, fool that he was, decided that he _would_ sit tight, thanks very much, and he'd wait for the sun to come up again. If he found Riddick dead on his way to the skiff when that happened, then he'd just have to take a bounty that was smaller than he'd originally intended. Like hell he was going out into the dark and _depending_ on Riddick to get him to the skiff alive though.

Mal, Jack and Riddick collected up all the alcohol that was over forty-proof, the cutting torch, and then migrated over to the wreck to see what else they could scavenge. Of course, they had to get the fuel cells as well.

A makeshift sled was strapped together, and the emergency lights were pulled out of their places and gathered up. Torches were strapped together in a bandoleer for Riddick to wear on his back, and Mal strapped himself in.

He'd be hauling the sled while Riddick would stay free – he only had a couple of bone shivs for fighting with, while Mal still had Johns' big gauge as well as his own gun.

Then Jack was wrapped up in the bio-luminescent cable, and the trio headed out into the darkness.

"Got nothin' to be worryin' on," Mal reassured Jack as they just walked, not hurrying. "If we've got enough light, and these things don't like light, then they'll keep their distance, however tasty they think we might be."

"They do also go off blood though," Riddick commented over his shoulder as they walked. He was a few paces ahead, making sure the path was clear for them.

"They... they do?" Jack asked nervously.

"Something you need to be tellin' us?" Mal asked cautiously.

"You... you won't leave me behind... will you?" Jack queried.

"Doc," Mal said with a warning tone.

"If I can smell her, then they sure as _w__o de fo zu_ can," Riddick answered.

"_Zhu ah_,_ ni ming ming zhi dao wo shi bang ni zuo shi_, _y__ou he bi zhao wo ma fan ne_?" Mal grumbled.

"You coulda left me..." Jack said softly, her voice bubbling on the verge of breaking into tears.

"_Bi jweh_," Mal said gently. "That right there is _d__a bian hua_."

"Weren't ever gonna leave you behind," Riddick agreed firmly. "Just means we gotta be more careful, that's all. No running around being _y__u bun duh_."

"It's just gonna be a bit more awkward for you in the skiff with us than I'd originally anticipated," Mal agreed with a crooked grin.

Jack relaxed a little.

"Just be sure to stay close, and in the light," Riddick added firmly.

Jack nodded like her head was on a spring.

"Jack, if both your legs got blown off, I'd carry you. Not leavin' you behind," Mal promised the girl, much as he'd once promised his soldiers in Serenity Valley.

"When you can't run, you crawl," Riddick pitched in, remembering the old saying from when they'd been in the War. "When you can't crawl, you find someone to carry you. No one gets left behind."

~oOo~

They kept up a steady pace the whole way. They didn't run, but they were going a bit faster than a walk. They didn't speed up, and they didn't slow down, and not once did they stop. Not even when things looked bad and they had to duck and dodge around a giant bone-structure that had collapsed from the impact of the sand-cat on their way to the crash-site. Still, they kept on. Still, they didn't stop.

It started to rain on them just as they reached the skiff. There was vague evidence that the three remaining Islams had all been turned into meals a while ago, and while Jack curled up in a corner of the skiff, the two men set about making sure everything was secure and they'd be able to survive being out in the Black until they either reached a planet with people or got picked up by another ship that might catch their distress signal.

Just the three of them making it off that rock alive, with all those monsters just past the halo of light that they had carried with them. They'd managed the trip without having to dip into the alcohol, so that was something for them to be able to drink while they were in space, apart from the water that the Islams had already piled up in the skiff.

"So... what happens when we run into people again?" Jack asked once they'd left the horrible planet behind – Mal and Riddick both strapped into the chairs at the front of the skiff, while she sat on one of the benches in the back. "People are gonna ask questions."

"Richard B. Riddick is dead," Riddick answered simply. "He died somewhere on that planet."

"What about you, Jack?" Mal enquired, and looked over his shoulder at her. "You got people to go to?"

Jack shook her head. "I was just... running away from the whore house I'd been sold to."

"You what?" both men exclaimed and turned fully in their chairs to look at the girl.

Jack shrugged uncomfortably. "My folks had died in debt. The man that came to collect decided to make his money back by selling me," she explained.

"Well, you're welcome to make a home on my ship if you like," Mal offered. "You too, Doc," he added to Riddick. "We none of us are good cooks, and we none of us can do more'n a bad patch-job when someone gets hurt, but..."

"I'm in," Riddick agreed.

"I can't cook either," Jack said with sheepish apology.

Mal shook his head. "They you can learn how to do anything else that needs be done around the ship," he offered. "Learn about engines, help our mechanic out in the engine room. Learn about flying or navigating. Learn how to use a gun, or shivs, or even how to bargain work. Anything you like."

Jack smiled in gratitude and appreciation. "Thanks," she said softly.

Mal nodded, and the two men returned to staring out at the Black and steering the skiff towards shipping lanes and civilisation. Or as much of civilisation as could be found in the back-roads anyway.

~oOo~

Mal's distress call, having been sent out specifically to his ship – even on the back roads, Sihnon wasn't _too_ far away when now they were making their heading there in a straight line – was soon enough picked up and, after a week of having nowhere near enough privacy, Serenity swept in and saved their collective asses.

"Jayne, I never thought I would be so pleased to see your ugly face," Mal greeted with a wide grin when his gun-hand was the first to welcome them aboard.

"Don't go celebratin' yet," Jayne advised with a smirk. "While you were gone, Zoe an' Wash took the opportunity to get married while you couldn't object to them breakin' your rule about no romancin' aboard ship."

"They what?" Mal asked flatly, then shook his head. "No, you know what? I'm just too damn happy to be home, I don't even care. If Wash makes Zoe happy enough she agreed to marry him, then that's her choice. I'll admit surprised, she wasn't too keen on him when I hired him."

"He got rid of the moustache," Zoe explained with a smirk as she came down the steps and joined the welcoming committee. Then she spotted Riddick. "Doc!"

Riddick chuckled. "Hey there Corporal," he answered with a smile. "And congratulations."

"Thanks."

"An' this here's Jack," Mal presented. "She an' you are gonna have to have some talkin'," he added to Zoe. "An' about things I've no desire to be hearin', so please do it in a bunk an' not any of the public spaces."

Zoe chuckled. "Sure thing Sir," she agreed, and waved Jack over. With the girl at her side, Zoe wrapped an arm around her shoulders and guided her away from the Captain who had no desire to know anything about woman's business. At all.

"Captain!"

"Kaylee!"

The bouncing ball of sunshine that was his pretty little mechanic launched herself into his arms, hugged him quickly, then quickly stepped back.

"You need a shower, Captain," she said, crinkling her nose.

Riddick and Mal both laughed.

"We all do, Lil Kaylee," Mal told her with a smile. "We all do. C'mon Doc," Mal invited. "I'll show you to a bunk of your own."

"Bunk a his own?" Jayne asked. "He joinin' the crew?"

"You bet he is," Mal said a little proudly. "Now, next time one of us gets shot, we'll actually be fixed up proper, 'stead a with duct tape."

"That will surely be a most welcome change," Jayne agreed with a smile. "Welcome aboard."

"Don't suppose you picked up work while you were waitin' on me?" Mal questioned.

Kaylee shook her head, though she kept half an eye on Riddick. "Zoe did negotiate the rental of one of the shuttles while we were on Sihnon though," she offered.

"We been tryin' to get it rented. Glad something worked out," Mal answered. "I'll meet 'em when I'm clean," he promised. "Well, let's try Persephone, see if Badger's got any work for us."

"Okay Captain!" Kaylee agreed, and with a last lingering glance at Riddick, hurried off to tell Wash where to chart the course to.


	5. Chapter 5

Riddick, being a dead escaped convict, could not be seen alive by anybody who might be interested in collecting the bounty on his head. Well, at least not until people would accept that he really was dead and his bounty got taken down – and even then he'd only be abroad with false idents. Idents that he'd be getting from Jack, surprisingly enough.

Jack had decided to take up hacking as a hobby. It wasn't anything that would get her into trouble yet, but every day she became a lighter touch with the cortex, and by the time Riddick had been 'dead' long enough that he should be able to safely show his face in public again, Jack would have a new identity, ready and waiting for him to claim. She was also building a new identity for herself, since she _had_, after all, run away from her previous situation.

When it turned out that the woman who had rented the shuttle was a registered Companion, there was a moment of genuine concern that she would recognise Riddick and call down the Alliance on them.

Jack resolved that before it even became an issue. She met Inara Serra – the Companion – before Riddick did, and of course the woman was curios as to what a child was doing on the ship.

"Captain Daddy and Papa Bear saved my life when the ship we were all on crashed," Jack answered simply. "Took me in as their own when they didn't know me from protein, even when I told them I'd run away from being sold to a whorehouse."

Miss Serra had been appropriately moved by this extremely abridged tale, but she had also enquired as to the identity of 'Papa Bear', as she could figure out 'Captain Daddy'.

Jack deliberately hesitated. "Papa Bear has a lot of bad people after him Miss," Jack said. "He did the right thing, but there are still people who want to punish him for it. I'd rather not just tell you without Papa Bear saying it's okay."

"Might be for the best you just call 'im 'Doc'," Mal suggested with a smile as he joined them at the dining table. "An' you can go see him about any ailments Miss," he added. "Doc knows most everything about the human body I wager. May not be up to date on the latest procedures, owing to having had to keep a low profile for a while, but he's still got a nose for knowin' how to fix a person if they're busted in any way."

Miss Serra nodded in acceptance of this. "I'll keep it to myself," she promised, and excused herself back to her shuttle.

Mal raised an eyebrow at Jack. "Captain Daddy and Papa Bear?" he asked with a smile.

Jack blushed and ducked her head. "Do you mind?" she asked softly.

Mal chuckled fondly and reached across the table to set a firm hand on her shoulder. "I'm flattered Jack," he answered. "An' I'm sure the Doc will be too."

"I got one problem with it," Riddick's voice came from the door behind them both, dark and catching them both by surprise.

"Yeah?" Jack asked nervously.

"A male bear is more likely to kill young than care for them. Papa Wolf would be more accurate," Riddick informed the girl with a smile.

Jack relaxed, beamed back, and the new title for Riddick was fixed – though Jack was the only one to use if normally. The rest of the crew only called him that when they were teasing him for how protective and attentive he was of Jack. And occasionally (increasingly often, and in a distinctly different way) of Kaylee.

Jack was learning from Kaylee about how to work Serenity when she wasn't practising her hacking or learning from Riddick about anatomy for the sake of better utilising the shivs he'd already taught her how to shape out of some scrap metal.

Mal would give her lessons in firearms when they were dirt-side and not before.

Jayne was initially distant with Jack. A few months of working and living together though, and Jack proved herself a lot more inclined to being able to shiv and shoot stuff, and a lot _less_ inclined towards an eternally sunny disposition. Jayne settled in to treating her like a treasured, if sometimes frustrating, little sister. Kind of like he did Kaylee.

Wash and Zoe treated Jack more like a favoured niece, while Inara attempted to take on the duties of being 'mother' to Jack. Jack didn't much need a mother, but those occasions when she did? On those occasions, then Inara's desire to fulfil that role was very much appreciated.

~oOo~

Jack and Riddick had been on Serenity for a year, they'd had new idents for just a few days, Miss Serra had proved that she could care less about the crew's criminal activities, so long as they didn't impact negatively on herself, and the crew had another job from Badger. He was a thankfully regular provider of work – and regular work was always needed. If Mal didn't care much for Badger as a person, and if Badger didn't care much for Mal's attitude _toward_ his person, well, the other shoe would drop one day, but Badger was still a business man. They just had to keep up doing the business quickly and cleanly.

"Alright, we're parked," Wash declared.

"Cooling everything down in three," Jack called out next. "Two. One."

"_Ching soh_! Jack, that air's _cold_!" Jayne yelped. "Like, _out there_ cold!"

Jack giggled. "Suit up," she recommended to the gun-hand with a smile. "You're gonna _be_ out there in a few minutes."

"And then I'm powering down everything that's not absolutely essential," Kaylee added.

"We're ghosts Jayne," Riddick joined in, also smiling darkly, still amused even with as many times as they'd done this since Riddick had joined them. "Ghosts aren't warm."

"Seems a bit unnecessary to me," Cobb complained without any real heat to his words. "I mean, we're worried about the Alliance? Out here?"

"If bein' careful makes sure we get paid," Mal said firmly. "'T'ain't like we're sufferin' over-much."

Having Riddick back in his company again, to say nothing of their little walk in the dark on that desert planet surrounded by monsters on all sides, had reminded Mal of a few pertinent points of caution – such as being prepared for the enemy just in case they showed up, even when you were fairly sure they wouldn't.

If Riddick hadn't stuck by that, then he'd have been dead before even being dragged on board the Hunter Gratzner by the now-dead Johns.

It was a precaution that, this time, proved to be their saving grace. For reasons beyond comprehension, an Alliance Cruiser _did_ sail by. Jack had her hand-held cortex cradled against her legs as she monitored their activity – and ready to run interference if they decided to do a scan of the derelict that the crew was pillaging.

Also ready to activate a remotely controlled distress beacon, called by the crew a 'crybaby', that would effectively draw off the Cruiser that much faster.

It wasn't needed. Thankfully. The Cruiser just kept on cruising by. It did a surface heat-scan, which showed them nothing, and they kept on moving.

"Clear," Wash informed those who were in their suits out in the black. "Safe to hustle again."

Jack continued to monitor the cortex, just in case, while the crates of cargo were brought on board.

"They're awfully pretty," Kaylee observed when Mal popped the top off one of the crates, just to take a peek at the cargo.

"I'd say worth a little risk," Wash agreed.

Riddick reached into the crate and picked up a bar of the processed protein, stuff that would keep a family well-fed for a month, and flipped it over in his hand. "A lot of risk," Riddick corrected the pilot lowly. "Jack, get on the cortex, see who else we can sell to in case Badger decides to short-shift the captain because the goods are imprinted."

"_Bei bi shiou ren_ would leave us hanging on a detail like that, even when he picked the cargo," Mal agreed with a grumble, and nodded to Jack for her to get going. "Wash, see how much time you can shave off us getting back to Persephone. This cash is burning a hole in my hull. Zoe, you call Badger, let him know we've got the goods. Don't say a word about 'em bein' imprinted though. I want to see if he knew that already."

Wash and Zoe both nodded in agreement, and headed up to the bridge.

"Alright, let's get these crates stowed. I don't want any tourists tripping over 'em," Mal decided, and replaced the lid on the crate as soon as Riddick had set the bar back in place.

"We're takin' on passengers at Persephone?" Kaylee asked.

"That's the notion," Mal agreed as he shifted one of the covers off one of the ship's many hidey-holes. "Don't figure on anybody recognising the Doc any more, since his face is completely off the cortex these days. Should be safe to do, and it'll give us a little respectability on the way to Boros. Not to mention the money."

"Pain in the ass," Jayne grumbled.

"No, it's shiny!" Kaylee disagreed with a smile. "I like meetin' new people. They've all got stories!"

"Cap, can you stop Kaylee from bein' so gorram cheerful please," Jayne requested as he took one side of one of the crates, and Mal took the other side.

Riddick, all on his own, lifted another of the crates to follow behind them.

"I don't believe there's a power in the 'verse can stop Kaylee from bein' cheerful," Mal said as the crates of cargo were being stowed. "Sometimes you just want to duct-tape her mouth shut and dump her in the hold for a month."

Kaylee's response to this was to kiss Mal's cheek and say "I love my Captain," with a blissful little smile all across her face.

Riddick grunted as he set his crate in its place, and the bubbly little mechanic danced over to him with a smile and a hint of a blush as she pressed a kiss as high up on his very muscular arm as she could reach. "Love you too," she added softly.

~oOo~

"This shouldn't take too long," Mal declared as they all moved down the ramp once Wash had parked the ship. "Put us down for departure in about three hours," he instructed Jack. "You're getting us passengers," he instructed her. "And Wash is the man who'll make sure no one takes advantage of you. We need passengers who can pay."

Jack nodded. "Thanks Dad, Uncle Wash," she said softly, a smile on her face. It was a lot of trust they were giving her, giving her the power to pick who they were taking on, effectively who they would be trusting for the length of a flight.

Both men smiled back, and Wash stepped up to wrap an arm around the thirteen-year-old girl.

"Doc, you're getting the big scary man discount," Mal continued. "Any supplies we're low on, and fuelling 'er up."

"I'd really like a new compression coil," Kaylee added hopefully.

Riddick chuckled lowly in his chest. "We can't afford 'new'," he reminded her gently. "But you come along and get the pretty girl discount while I work the big scary man discount. We might find you something," he said, and offered her his arm.

Kaylee smiled brightly and wrapped both of her arms about one of Riddick's biceps, happily snuggling up against his large frame. "I love my Wolf," she said.

"Oi!" Jack objected with a smile.

Kaylee looked back over her shoulder at Jack. "Sorry _mei mei_, I mean, _our_ Wolf," she corrected herself with a smile.

Jack nodded, satisfied. "Stay safe Papa," she requested of him earnestly.

"How do you like that, Doc?" Zoe teased lightly. "From one of the most dangerous men in the 'verse, you've been demoted to 'papa'."

Riddick shook his head with a smile. "Once a man has a daughter, nothing in the 'verse will ever scare him again," he answered happily. "I'll be safe Jack," he promised.

~oOo~

Jack smiled at the grey-haired man as she watched him stroll along the docks, looking at the ships rather than the destinations.

"Now why're you lookin' at the ships, rather than the destinations?" Jack asked when he paused for a moment in front of Serenity. "Don't care where you're going?"

"Getting there is the worthier part," the man answered.  
Jack's smile stretched. "Well, if you're in it for the journey, Serenity here is the smoothest ride from here to Boros for those as can pay, and the company aboard ship is second to none too," she offered, and tilted her head slightly in invitation to the man.

"Well, I've got a little cash, and..." and he picked up a little box from the top of his luggage, held it out to Jack, and lifted the lid.

Jack's eyes went wide at the sight. "That's... that's _real food_, isn't it?" she asked in a breathy whisper.

The man smiled indulgently and nodded. "It won't keep, but I had a garden at the Southdown Abbey, and I just couldn't leave it _all_ behind," he explained as he replaced the lid.

Jack's head snapped up. "Abbey?"

The man nodded. "I'm a Shepherd, called Book," he said, and offered his hand.

Jack accepted it. "I'm Jack," she said, then released the man's hand as a pertinent little something occurred to her. "Um... Just a warning? We got a couple of men on the crew who... well, Captain Dad will say you're more than welcome Shepherd, but... God ain't," she admitted weakly, still trying to smile. "He, uh, well, he was in the war."

Shepherd Book nodded in understanding as he took that in. "Desperate situations like that, either drive a man to God or away from Him."

"An' Papa... Well, he absolutely believes in God... and absolutely does _not_ like him," Jack confided.

The old man chuckled. "That's fine, young Jack," he assured her. "I've been in such dark places myself. I'm no stranger."

"And, if the Captain introduces you to our 'ambassador', that's Inara, a registered Companion. We call her an 'ambassador' because there's a lot of planets we couldn't even get in orbit of without her," Jack persisted.

"Alright," he said easily, still smiling slightly. "It's nice to be warned."

Jack smiled quickly at that. "But we go all over the 'verse, if you're wanting to bring the word to them as need it, just... yeah," Jack finished weakly.

Again, the Shepherd nodded in understanding. "_Nyen ching duh_," he said fondly, "you have convinced me that the journey will be interesting. Permission to come aboard?"

Jack's smile returned in full. "Granted, and welcome aboard Shepherd Book. Captain's out doin' other business, but you can meet the pilot now if you'd like?"

Book nodded.

"Uncle Wash!" Jack called, and raced up to the top of the ramp.

Book chuckled. "Captain Dad, Papa, and now Uncle Wash?" he asked.

Jack blushed a little and her shoulders came up slightly, defensively. "My folks died, about a year gone, but the folks on Serenity took me in. We're not one of us related by blood, but that doesn't make us any less family," she insisted softly.

Book smiled at her as he stepped up the ramp and took one of her hands in his. "Then I'm sure I will thoroughly enjoy meeting everybody," he told her.

"This our first passenger Jack?" Wash called as he strode over.

Jack brightened up. It was very difficult to be gloomy in the same room as Wash, much like it was damn near impossible for Kaylee to ever be not-cheerful. "Uncle Wash, meet Shepherd Book," Jack presented, proud of herself for having secured a passenger so quickly.

She only managed to fill up two more of their six passenger bunks though. After Shepherd Book, Jack had caught up a _very_ Core-rich looking guy. He didn't seem altogether thrilled with the idea of Boros, but on the other hand, Jack was only asking his name and if he could pay, rather than asking for his ident chip – something most other ships _were_ asking for. He was also swayed by the ship's departure time, which was nearer than any of the other ship's. The man even paid extra because he needed someone to bring his very large cargo to the ship.

While Wash was helping the Core-boy (Simon, he said his name was) fetch his big cargo, a man stepped up to Jack, introduced himself as Dobson, and asked how much the fare was.

Jack was instantly suspicious of the man. He hadn't looked at their ship, their destination, or their departure time. Here was a man who didn't care what the ride was like, didn't care where they were going, or how long it would be before they left. Someone like the Shepherd was interested in the journey, picked a smooth-riding ship. Someone like the Core-boy was running from something, focused as he was on how soon the ship would be leaving. The destination wasn't ideal, but he may well pay to stay on board for another port. This guy... Jack had a feeling he was looking to board Serenity because of someone else who would be leaving Persephone on her.

Jack was tempted for half a second to lie to the man and say they were full up, but they did need the money, and if he was where she could see, then she could keep an eye on his activities. No telling what mischief he might get up to where he couldn't be watched.

So, Jack smiled, named a price, and welcomed the man on board. If he tried anything against Riddick, or indeed any of the crew, she'd rip a shiv through his sweet spot herself.


	6. Chapter 6

"How'd it go Dad?" Jack asked when Mal, Zoe and Jayne returned to the ship – the last of those who had gone out from it to return.

"Short-shrifted and set up," Mal grumbled back. "Badger knew, and decided that he didn't like I'm taller than 'im, so he's not buying the cargo he sent us to get for him."

"_Ai chr jze se duh fohn diang gho_!" Jack hissed fiercely.

Mal lifted an eyebrow at her in a scolding, parental sort of way.

"Oh and you weren't thinking the same thing," Jack quipped.

Mal silently nodded, acceding the point. "Next time I gotta deal with Badger -" and there would be a next time, whatever the opinions both parties currently held of each other. "I'm takin' the Doc with me."

"So... The cargo is burning a hole in the hull, we got civilian passengers who we don't want knowing our business... Let me guess," Jack said, figuring it out. "We're taking... 'medical supplies'? To Whitefall. Patience is the only one who'd take the cargo, so we're gonna have to deal with her even if she shot you last time we had any dealings with her."

"That's right," Mal agreed with an unhappy nod.

Jack sighed. "Dad, let me to the talking for this one? Please? I've already got a feel of how our passengers will react to the detour," she requested.

"What sort of passengers have we got?" Mal asked, while said passengers double-checked over their luggage to make sure they weren't leaving anything behind on Persephone that they needed to take with them.

"Shepherd Book, the old guy, he's on board for the trip, not the destination. I've already conveyed that he's welcome, but God ain't," Jack was quick to assure her captain.

Mal nodded and folded his arms over his chest, a clear if silent 'go on'.

"Then there's the Core _b__uhn dahn_, Simon," Jack continued. "He's not so keen on going _to_ Boros so much as he's keen to get _away_ from Persephone, particularly without anybody checking his ident chip. That big box Wash brought on board for him is a fancy-pants new-type cryo-box. Not that he'd admit it, but I've been in my share of cryo-pods when I was running away from everything, and Papa's been forcefully stored in more'n that. I'm betting he's got someone very precious to him, or his bank account, being smuggled off planet in that box."

"_Go shi_. Jack, why'd you let someone like that on the ship?" Mal asked with soft desperation.

"Because he'd paying double the standard fare without batting an eyelash," Jack answered simply.

Mal blinked at that. "Okay," he allowed. "Not to all-fired up about the smuggling people bit, but alright. Just so long as it doesn't bring a heap of trouble down on us."

"Which brings us to passenger number three," Jack said with a bit of a wince. "Dobson. He didn't look at the manifest or the ship before he approached me about the fare. He boarded us lookin' for someone or something."

"Jack, are you goin' _f__eng le_ from bein' too long in the black?" Mal asked seriously.

"If he's on board, then I can keep an eye on him and any transmissions he tries to send," Jack countered firmly. "An' we can always space 'im if he becomes a problem. We'd still have his money, after all."

"Playin' it very close to the wire, _y__ao nu_," he warned, even as he messed her hair fondly with one gun-calloused hand. "Alright little one, it's your group of tourists."

Jack smiled brightly.

~oOo~

"So, we got the dining area, which you're welcome to invade whenever ya like, not that we've got much outside of the protein rainbow normally," Jack said as she guided the tourists up the stairs to the ship's social hub – and where Zoe, Mal, and Kaylee were all stood so that they could get a good look at the passengers. "Sit down meals do happen nice an' regular though, we got one comin' up at eighteen-hundred," she added, then grinned brightly. "Which Shepherd Book has kindly offered to help prepare."

"Awful grateful," Mal said plainly, having been already warned about the presence of a holy man on his boat. "Especially if you can actually cook. Kaylee does a fair job with the protein, but none of us are really much good at cooking."

Shepherd Book nodded and smiled. "I'm a fair hand," he agreed pleasantly.

"Apart from here though, there's not really anywhere in the ship you want to be goin' outside the passenger dorms. The bridge is the domain of our pilot, the engine room is private property of our mechanic, I'm sure no one actually _wants_ to have to visit the infirmary, and there's always the possibility of something falling loose in the cargo bay, so we don't want anybody goin' down there without an escort – for your own safety."  
"Some of my personal effects are in the cargo bay," Simon said.

Jack nodded and rolled her eyes. "Well, duh," she agreed easily. "An' we're not sayin' you can't get to 'em, just that we want you to not go sneakin' in there on your own without anybody knowin', in case something falls on ya. Our ships' doctor is good, damn good, but he can't fix a crushed skull if you get your brain splattered all over the floor."

Simon winced and nodded in acceptance of this.

"An' there's one more thing," Jack said. "Cap's business on Persephone got us business at Whitefall. Nothing major, just deliverin' some medical supplies. We'll get to Boros no more'n a day off schedule, everything goes smooth."

"_How w'rin bu lai, whai w'rin bu jwo_," Kaylee joked softly to Zoe.

"I do apologise for the inconvenience," Mal said over the top of his mechanic.

"What medical supplies?" Simon asked curiously.

"Oh, we don't ask questions like that," Jack cooed in answer with an innocent smile. "We just get given a crate with a label on, a destination and a person to deliver to, and _hopefully_ the full and correct pay for the job."

"Amen to _that_," Wash said as he stepped through the door at the dining-end of the hallway that led to the bridge.

Mal pulled a face. "Mm," he hummed in agreement. "Whitefall is the fourth moon on Athens and a little out of our way, not exactly civilisation, but like Jack here told you already, shouldn't be more'n a day off schedule to Boros. Jack, Kaylee, Zoe, you three want to show everybody down to the cargo bay?" he asked.

"Yes Sir," Zoe answered for them.

Jack lingered behind the group, waiting to leave last.

"You send word to Patience?" Mal asked Wash.

"Ain't heard back yet," Wash answered. "Didn't she shoot you one time?"

"Everybody's makin' a fuss," Mal groused.

Jack giggled, and hurried out after the passengers.

She took a watch position on the cross-walk, and noticed that Dobson deliberately tripped on Simon, and reached around the other man in such a way that he got a good look at what the other man was fiddling with on the front of his fancy-pants cryo-box.

Right. The man was after one of the passengers. Not because of their stolen cargo, and he wasn't snooping around looking for Riddick. That was good.

~oOo~

"Ah, the ambassador graces us with her presence!" Mal declared. He'd joined Jack on the cross-walk, and was leaning against the railing, keeping half an eye on the passengers as they moved about.

Kaylee was there too, and the Shepherd had just presented them with the fresh, _real_ food from his garden in the abbey, the stuff that wouldn't keep but he was more than willing to share with the crew. The little wooden punnet of strawberries, however, were Jack's.

"Hello Mal," Inara answered with a smile as she descended to join them. "I see we have some new faces."

"Hey you," Kaylee greeted Inara with a smile.

"Hey you," Inara returned, smiling right back.

"Ambassador, this is Shepherd Book," Mal presented.

"I'd have to say this is the first time we've had a preacher on board," Inara remarked.

"I try not to preach so much as share the word where it's needed," the old man returned with a smile. "Ambassador," he added.

Inara frowned slightly. "Shepherd, you should know that 'Ambassador' is the captain's way of-"

"I know Ma'am," Book cut her off gently. "Jack warned me," he added with a cheeky smile.

Kaylee chose that moment to pick up one of the boxes of food that Book had presented to them, and walked with Inara back up the stairs. "How many of them fell madly in love with you and wanted to take you away from all this?"

"Just the one," Inara confessed. "I think I'm losing my touch."

"Ruin my fun," Mal grumbled at Jack.

Jack laughed and stuck out her tongue at Mal briefly. "That's what I'm here for Dad," she quipped lightly, and, as Dobson had just tripped his way out of the cargo hold, dashed off with another box of the Shepherd's food before he could try and cuff her about the ear.

"Go tell your Papa you've bin misbehavin'!" Mal ordered after her.

"How's she bin doin' that?" Riddick asked from behind Mal, making the man jump.

"Ah!" Mal yelped, and turned. "Dammit Doc! You ever gonna learn to make _noise_ when you're comin' up behind me?"

Riddick smiled wickedly. "And miss the way you jump, Captain?" he countered, amused. "Now what's this I hear about us makin' a delivery to a person who's _shot_ you before Mal?"

"Everybody's makin' a fuss!" Mal complained again. "It's been a long time since Patience shot me, an' that was due to a perfectly legitimate conflict of interest. I got no grudge."

Riddick shook his head at the man who had, upon purchase of a ship, been promoted from sergeant to captain. This action drew his gaze to the other man standing with them. "Father," he greeted lightly, then smirked. "It's been a long time."

Shepherd Book blinked in surprise, doing a double-take of the man. "It has indeed," he agreed, and held out a hand. "I'm glad to see you well."

"Likewise," Riddick replied, and accepted the hand. "I'm gonna tell Jack she's cleared to call you 'Pops'," he warned with a smirk.

Book smiled. "I'm flattered," he said genuinely. "I'd thought you'd never forgive me for that time."

Riddick shook his head. "Holding grudges isn't really my style," he admitted. "Especially not when you didn't even _want_ to put those chains on me."

"I'm... missin' somethin'," Mal said, concerned.

"I had the unfortunate duty of having to be the man to report the death of a certain magistrate to the higher authorities," Shepherd Book explained. "As well as his cause of death."

"Me," Riddick quipped with that dangerous grin of his.

"I knew this man was more or less right to do what he'd done, it was the 'less' part of the 'more or less' that was the problem for me," Book explained. "A couple of years later, when I heard about his first capture, I decided to dedicate myself to God."

Mal nodded in understanding. "Alright," he allowed. "That don't tell me much, but it does tell me you ain't gonna go waving the Alliance about my doctor."

Book shook his head. "No," he agreed. "I'm not."

Mal nodded. "Then I'm satisfied."

~oOo~

The evening meal was lively, communal, and friendly all over. Well, until Book asked if anybody would mind if he said grace. Mal's answer was "only if you say it out loud", which saw silence descend over the table for a moment. Jayne, Kaylee, Simon and Dobson all joined Book in silently giving their thanks to God for the meal.

"So does it happen a lot?" Simon asked as the graces were finished and those who'd stopped to say grace reached for their cutlery. "The government commandeering your ship? Telling you where to go?"

"What?" Mal asked, confused.

"Your delivery of medical supplies..." Simon reminded the man.

"Private party," Mal answered. "Not the government. We go where work takes us, that's all. Still, that sort of thing is what governments are for, getting in a man's way."

"It's good if the supplies are needed," Dobson insisted. "But a private party? Really?"

"We take what work comes," Mal reiterated. "Sometimes that's a private party that's feelin' all charitable-like towards the outer moons."

"We're just happy to be doin' good works," Jayne agreed out of the corner of his mouth, as he chewed in the other cheek.

"I hear a lot of the border moons are in bad shape," Dobson said. "Plagues and famine..."

"Some of it's exaggerated," Zoe said as she made up a plate for herself, having just returned from delivering her husband his dinner. "And some of it ain't."

"The outer moons were terraformed like the inner planets," Inara agreed, "and like them, they were made as close to Earth-That-Was as they could be, atmosphere, gravity and so on, but..." she trailed off, hesitantly.

"But the funding for making those moons actually worth living on isn't there," Jack finished firmly. "Settlers get dumped out there with hatches, maybe a couple of blankets, and if they're really lucky they'll have a heard of some flavour."

"Some of them make it," Mal added softly. "Some of them."

"Then I guess it's good that there's someone being generous enough to send medical supplies out to them," Simon offered. "And good of you to take them."

"You're a doctor, right?" Kaylee asked Simon.

"Oh, yes," Simon answered, and dabbed at his mouth with a napkin. "I was a trauma surgeon on Osiris, in Capital City."

"Long way from here," Mal commented.

"You seem so young," Kaylee continued with a smile. "To be a doctor."

Riddick frowned. "You implyin' I'm _old_, Kaylee?" he asked as he traced a hand up the outside of her leg.

"No, _Papa_," Kaylee answered, all sweet innocence.

He scowled at her, but it was for show. He was the ship's doctor after all, so when she'd started bringing her dinner back up before breakfast time that morning, he'd been the one to investigate the reasoning. This girl that was all sunshine and light without hurting his eyes was going to be making him a father. A _real_ father.

She wasn't going to be showing for a while yet, and they'd both had a discussion about how much she could and couldn't exert herself. Keeping the engine running smooth wasn't exactly _light_ work, after all.

"You're a doctor?" Simon asked the large man, a little incredulously.

Riddick chuckled. "A different kind to you, I'd guess," he allowed. "Though, I don't see how you can be a trauma surgeon with as soft as you look."

"What do you mean?" Simon queried.

"It takes a _lot_ of strength to be able to put a dislocated joint back into place properly," Jack offered up.  
"Or use a pair of rib-spreaders," Book chimed in.

"Or just shift a patient onto the surgery table," Mal added. "Or did you have big, burly nurses to do all that for you in Capital City?"

"Uh, er, um..." Simon hesitated.

Jayne snorted softly in amusement, busy as he was chewing.

Riddick, not having a mouthful of food at that moment, outright laughed. "I'll drag you out of your bunk in the morning and have you do some weight training," he told the boy with a smile. "Having some upper-body strength will be a benefit to your profession."

"Uh... thank you?"

"My weights?" Jayne asked, eyes narrowed at the man who, even though they'd been flying together for over a year, would still have no problem slicing him from navel to nose with a sharpened scrap of whatever.

"Yes, Jayne, your weights. I'll spot you later," Riddick offered in compensation.

Jayne nodded in acceptance. "Alright then," he agreed.


	7. Chapter 7

It was the small hours of the sleep-cycle (there was no day or night in space) when Jack caught it. A transmission, out-going and _not_ good for the continued health of those who lived and worked on Serenity. Jack, with a year of hacking practice under her belt and some good training in how to scramble signals from Wash's, ah, 'friend', Mr Universe, had been smart enough to set up a program to catch any and all out-goings, make it _look_ like it got sent, but actually have it firmly re-routed to stay within Serenity.

Mr Universe liked to tote that no one could stop the signal, that the signal went everywhere, and sometimes even that _he was_ the signal – and therefore could go wherever he wanted – but stopping the signal was different to diverting it, and in this case, the signal was well and truly diverted.

"Hey Dad," Jack chirped into the intercom. "Dobson just _b__ie woo lohng_, an' I caught 'im."

Mal hurried up to the bridge, where Jack was sitting proudly in the co-pilot's chair with her cortex screen up.

Wash was catching some sack-time, since Jack was on the bridge. She'd be able to give him a yell if something came up, and he and Zoe shared the bunk closest to the bridge.

"What he do?" Mal asked.

"Man's _t__ian di wu yowng_," Jack said smugly. "Sent out a coded transmission that was for getting picked up by the nearest Alliance Cruiser."

"Please tell me you scrambled it," Mal requested, eyes wide with fear of being caught by the Alliance with all the illegal stuff he had on his ship.

Jack beamed. "I did better," she answered. "I have _us_ registering as the nearest Alliance Cruiser. It didn't leave the ship, an' the _f__eh feh pi goh_ thinks he's got reinforcements coming. I can crack it in the time it will take you to rouse Uncle Wash, Papa an' Jayne."

"Think your Papa an' the preacher are havin' a catch-up still in the kitchen," Mal pointed out.

Jack shrugged. "Well, they haven't seen each other since 'fore I was born," she pointed out reasonably. "They got a lot of catchin' up to do."

"What are you cookin' up in that brain-pan of yours?" Mal asked, eyes narrowed at the girl. Since she'd become part of his crew, the girl had proven herself to do 'cunning' and 'sneaky' better than a fox, rat, snake, and weasel all rolled up together – and with the teeth of any of those animals as well to back it up.

Jack wordlessly pulled up a bounty for Simon Tam, an accompanying picture showed that it was the same young man who'd bought passage with them.

"_Ai yah tien ah_," Mal grumbled when he saw the small bounty, and 'dead or alive'. "What'd he do to get that?"

Jack pulled up another bounty, this one for _River_ Tam. The reward for her was _much_ larger, and _only_ paid out for if she was delivered alive. "My guess is he kidnapped his little sister and put her in a cryo-box," Jack answered seriously. "What we have here is an excellent opportunity to confront both parties, be rid of the law-man, and do a good deed."

"A good deed!?" Mal demanded lowly, not wanting his words to echo back through the ship. "That good deed could put everybody on this ship at potential very-high risk! We ain't gettin' paid enough for that."

"Dad, I set up the program to catch Dobson's out-going pretty much as soon as I accepted his fare," Jack stated calmly. "I didn't only just find these bounties. I dug up what I could on our other passengers, just in case it was them and not us Dobson was lookin' for, as soon as that program was in place. I found Simon Tam, doctor and fugitive, and I found River Tam, who basically _disappeared_ off the face of the 'verse after she entered a government-sponsored academy – and who is now _very_ wanted."

"You dug up more, didn't you?" Mal asked softly.

Jack nodded. "Better go put a stop to the law-man for now though," she said. "An' see what comes of that confrontation. He's pro'lly tryin' ta arrest the Core _hwen dan_ right now."

Mal nodded and make sure his gun was in place as he left the bridge.

"C'mon Doc," Mal called softly as he passed the man in the galley. "Jack says we got a party on our hands."

Riddick smirked. "Time to do for Dobson?" he asked, pushing himself out of his seat.

"I can't condone murder," Book reminded the younger man.

Riddick chuckled. "Not askin' you to," he said. "You get to play peacemaker even, if you like," he offered.

"Oh, that I can do," Book agreed with a nod, and rose to follow the other two men out of the dining area.

~oOo~

"No, Kaylee -!" Jack exclaimed as her big sister figure moved for the door to the hold. Jack herself had come down to watch, but she'd been a silent spectator.

Kaylee had walked in with a question on her lips.

Jack had grabbed the older girl and done her best to push her to the ground before the twitchy law-man could shoot the mechanic. The result was that she felt something burn its way into her shoulder.

"Kaylee! Jack!" Riddick yelled, and rushed over to his girls, pushing Dobson out of his way harshly. Maybe 'accidentally' breaking his neck in the same motion.

"Hey Papa," Jack greeted with a smile when he came into her view.

"Jack, _mei-mei_, what did you do that for?" Kaylee asked, tears in her eyes as she scrabbled upright and saw the blood.

"Well, couldn't let you get shot," Jack answered with a weak smile. "Hi Ma," she added as Inara also shifted into her view, a frantic, scared look on her face as well.

"Jack..." Inara whimpered.

Riddick scooped Jack up into his arms. "Kaylee?" he checked.

"I'm fine," she promised softly, and with a hand over her not-noticeable-yet tummy gave a nod to indicate that their little secret was safe as well. No harm done, no reason to mention their surprise to the rest of the crew yet.

Riddick nodded in acceptance, but even with his goggles on, Kaylee could tell he was giving her a look that meant he'd be giving her a thorough check-up later, and moved as smoothly as he could up the stairs to the infirmary.

"Damn," Jack murmured as she was set down on the sterile bench. "I wanted to see what was in his box."

"Shit," Riddick swore softly. "That kind of cryo-box, you get popped out early there's a chance of shock," he said as he hurried to clean Jack's injury.

"Just pack it Papa," Jack advised. "So's I don't bleed out. I promise not to move from this spot 'til you get back with your other patient," she promised weakly. "Gotta learn to deal with the pain a bein' shot anyhow, number of times it happens when folks on this crew go out on jobs."

Riddick, in a rare and private gesture of tenderness that was only ever given to one of his girls, pressed a soft kiss to Jack's forehead before he did just that, and then bolted from the infirmary as soon as he'd packed the wound, cursing as he just skipped the stairs altogether and dropped down right between the sissy Core boy and his box.

Jayne took the opportunity to restrain Simon. The boy had jumped back in shock at Riddick's sudden appearance before him, and was momentarily slack rather than putting up any kind of a fuss.

"Your instinct for the theatric is always somethin' I've admired," Mal complimented with a wry smirk.

Then he kicked the box open.

"Huh," Mal grunted at the sight before him.

Riddick ripped his friend's coat off his arms without even looking. He knew what kind of cryo-box that one was, and even if he hadn't, Mal's reaction to the contents would have been enough.

Girl was naked.

"I need to check her vitals," Simon insisted.

"Oh that's what they're callin' it these days?" Mal snapped at the boy. "_Our_ doc will check the girl's alright," he said, and nodded for Riddick to feel free to take his leave. Knew he couldn't be finished patching up Jack so quickly anyway. "_You_," Mal continued to Simon, "can explain what in the ruttin' hell you're doin' transporting young girls as cargo. Are you sellin' her to some outer-world baron, or is she for your own use?" He knew the relation between the two, but answers from the source were always better than speculation.

Simon swallowed nervously at the dangerous look he was getting from all around. Even the sweet-natured mechanic was giving him the stink-eye.

"She's my sister," he admitted.

As promised, Jack hadn't moved from where Riddick had set her. She had more company than when Riddick had left though. Inara hadn't moved quite so fast as Riddick had, but she was there now, and fighting back tears as she held tightly to the hand not attached to the injured shoulder.

"Who's this?" Inara asked through the pain when Riddick stepped through the infirmary door.

"The boy's _sister_, apparently," Riddick answered. "Should wake up and go into shock from the abrupt removal from cryo any second," he added as he lay her on another bench.

"Is that Mal's coat?" Inara queried.

"She was naked in that box," Riddick told the woman. "An' I don't exactly have anything I coulda stripped off to cover her with."

A corner of Inara's mouth quirked up in agreement with that, and she pulled her own silk robe off her shoulders.

"This will be more effective," she offered, "and more comfortable if she doesn't have anything underneath."

Riddick nodded and moved away from the still unconscious girl to let Inara change the coat for the robe. He still had Jack's bullet hole to deal with.

"Hey Papa," Jack greeted with a smile as he started to unpack the wound he'd just packed. "Can I turn the bullet into a necklace, if it's still mostly intact?" she asked.

"You actually want to wear jewellery now?" Riddick countered with a slight smirk. "You've been rather vocal in your objections to bein' 'girlified'," he pointed out.

"That's make-up an' dresses," Jack pointed out. "But this is about as much 'jewellery' as the shoelaces Aunt Zoe wears 'round her neck."

Riddick nodded in understanding as he picked up a pair of tweezers. Time to start pulling out the bullet. Or the pieces of bullet, depending.

"If it's whole, you'll have a pendant for a shoestring of your own. It busted, well, you'll be makin' a charm bracelet with it," Riddick told her.

Jack smiled through the pain – she still hadn't been medicated at all, and until she asked for something to stop the pain, she wouldn't be given any medication beyond something to prevent infection once the hole was stitched up. "Thanks Papa."

The girl chose that moment to wake up – with a scream – and roll off the bench Riddick had set her on.

Inara was right there, being maternal.

"Shh," she cooed, and wrapped her arms gently and loosely around the girl's shoulders. "Shh, sweetie, it's alright. You're safe now. You're safe."

"Simon..." the girl whimpered.

"Explaining himself to the captain right now, most likely," Inara told the girl, keeping her voice soft. "We take a dim view of smuggling people in boxes."

"Who... where..." the girl asked, staring around herself and flinching back in on herself when she realised she was in a room that had needles and medication.

"I'm Inara, that's Jack on the table, and _our_ doctor, fixing her shoulder," Inara said.

"Call me 'Papa', little girl," Riddick offered. "This one here does," he added as he finally pulled out the bullet, whole, from Jack's shoulder.

"Papa Wolf," Jack corrected with a smile. "Loyal, caring, and deadly."

"No needles," the girl begged.

Riddick barked out a sharp laugh. "Course not," he said as he picked up a needle and thread to stitch the hole in Jack's shoulder closed. "Girly, shootin' you up with drugs when I've got no idea what sort of cocktail is already in your system is just plain _yu buh dun_. No one who's ever accused me of bein' stupid has lived long. I kinda take offence."

"Drugs are always a last resort on this ship," Jack added. "Meds are expensive, so we use them sparingly for the most part, necessary inoculations aside."

"Preventative medicine, rather than curative," Riddick continued. "Though we got that stuff too, if it's needed."

"No needles?" the girl checked.

Inara smiled. "No needles," she confirmed.

"Well," Riddick corrected. "Might be a thing to take a little blood and actually see what you've been hyped up with, so we can help you get through any negative side-effects that might be looming."

The girl nodded slowly. "Logical, and acceptable," she agreed softly. "Not much blood?"

Jack picked up the needle that held her inevitable antibiotic, and held it up for the girl to see.

"Only about this much," she said, holding her finger at a point on the tube. "Papa puts it in that machine -" she said, pointing to a box-thing on the bench behind the girl, "- and I hack through to a hospital computer to run the sample."

"Traceable?" the girl asked.

Jack shook her head. "Only if someone's looking _real_ hard, and those big hospitals are _always_ running blood samples, so they won't notice," Jack explained. "I'll relay off a dozen or so satellites too, so it's not gonna be traced back to us even if someone _is_ looking."

The girl nodded in acceptance.

"Sweetie, you haven't told us your name," Inara pointed out gently.

"River," the girl said. "The girl is called River."

Inara smiled kindly.

"Well then, welcome to Serenity, River," Riddick offered.

"Thank you, Papa Wolf," River said softly.

Riddick smiled to himself. It seemed he had two daughters now. He wondered if the little life growing inside Kaylee would be another daughter for him, or if he'd have a son growing in there. It didn't make much difference really. Either way, it would be his kid. Another one in his strange – but wonderful – family.

~The End~


End file.
